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The Farmhouse Kitchen

The Farmhouse Kitchen By Mary Norwak

Although modern cooking is more to my taste, I love to look at old cookbooks, which not only show the type of food people were eating 'back in the day' but also give a glimpse into how they ate. The Farmhouse Kitchen was published as recently as 1975 but it evokes a different era: a time when people raised their own food, ate according to the season and preserved some for later use. Food was heartier back then, fat wasn't reviled as the root of all evil and, although life as a farmer was hard, people took the time to prepare and savour what they ate.

Of course, many of the recipes in the book seem heavy and old-fashioned but there are a lot of dishes here that continue to be cooked in ordinary British households and which - with slight revisions - are being made at countryside gastro-pubs and by modern chefs such as Fergus Henderson (see page 12). Chapters include 'The dairy' (with sub-categories of cheeses, eggs, buttermilk and whey); 'The stillroom' (jams and jellies, candied fruit and crystallised flowers, potted products); 'Storing, salting and smoking'; and 'Good cheer' (beer, cider and wines; soft drinks, cordials and syrups).

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